“House of Cards” actor Michael Kelly and “Pirates of the Caribbean” star Jonathan Pryce have joined the cast of Tom Hardy‘s FX drama “Taboo.”
Other cast members joining the series are Oona Chaplin (“Game of Thrones”) and David Hayman (“Macbeth”). Jessie Buckley, Ashley Walters, Jefferson Hall, Leo Bill, Christopher Fairbank, Richard Dixon, Jason Watkins and Nicholas Woodeson will also star.
The eight-episode series, which was commissioned by BBC One, was created by Steven Knight and is being directed by Kristoffer Nyholm. The series will also air in the U.K.
“Taboo” is set in 1813, and Hardy plays rogue adventurer James Keziah Delaney, who returns from Africa with 14 ill-gotten diamonds and is bent on avenging his father’s death. Refusing to sell the family business to the East India Company, Delaney sets out to build his own trade and shipping empire and finds himself playing a very dangerous game.
Ridley Scott, Knight and Hardy are executive producing, as are Scott Free’s Kate Crowe, Dean Baker of Hardy Son & Baker, and Gene Stein from Sonar Entertainment, which will distribute the project internationally.
Filming is set to begin in London this week. “Taboo” is slated for a mid-2016 release.